He ate my MAP!

Our side trip for today was a short train ride to Nara, one of the ancient capitals of Japan.

It's a pretty little town, rich in history and full of free-roaming deer who kinda own the place. The deer are descendants of the Nara deer believed to be messengers of gods of the Kasuga shrine in Nara. They are considered sacred and are protected by law - they even have their own road crossings.

We hiked to the major sights in Nara and along the way discovered that centuries of protection and pampering leads to some really pushy deer! I made the mistake of buying a bundle of deer cakes to feed them and was rewarded with a few swift headbutts to the behind by deer who didn't think I was making a sufficient 'offering.' I quickly handed out the wafer-like cakes in the park and continued along the route to the Kasuga Shrine, the Kasuga-yama Hill Primeval Forest and the Tōdai-ji Temple, all of which are considered National Treasures and World Heritage Sites. The Great Buddha at Tōdai-ji is HUGE and very intricate - it is truly mind boggling to consider the scale of the building (possibly the largest wooden building in the world from what we read), the statues and the Buddha himself.

After trekking across Nara, we decided to hang out by a pond outside the Temple to enjoy the sunny afternoon and watch the kids feed the koi in the pond. A teenage girl approached the pond to our right and was quickly flanked by two deer who proceeded to play out a "Night at the Roxbury" skit, bouncing her back and forth in an effort to obtain the koi feeding stick she was holding. A grandmother quickly jumped in and made noise and motions I can only guess were supposed to indicate food to distract the deer. As the scene unfolded, I felt a tug at my side and swung around...one of those darn sacred deer got tired of waiting, stuck his head in my purse and took off with our map! I lept over to grab the map, knowing that without it we would probably have to wander a bit to find our way back to the train station, but it was not to be. I got back the center stub of my map after quite a struggle and the deer happily wandered back to the pond chewing away on what I hope was a very tasty map....